


Slamming Toasters and Taking Names

by CommaSplice



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Violence Against Toasters, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/pseuds/CommaSplice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violence against toasters is not always a bad thing. </p><p>Pure unadulterated crack</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slamming Toasters and Taking Names

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crossingwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/gifts).



> Inspired by [this post on Tumblr](http://tmblr.co/Z9fD_s_EZJRB).

* * *

Had anyone in Tywin Lannister’s family actually bothered to ask him how he liked to celebrate his name day, he would have answered “alone.”

He disliked parties. He did not care to be sung to. He abhorred birthday cake. He loathed the gift giving. Not a one of his family had the first clue as to what to get him. As was exemplified by this last lot: two gold pens, a custom-made putter, three desk sets, money, a leather golf bag, a handmade mug proclaiming “World’s Greatest Grandpa,” more money, a book on the history of House Lannister, and a gold watch. Having now received at least one gold pen and desk set each name day from one of relative or another for the past twenty years, he would have thought they would have remembered not to get him any more of the wretched things. He loathed golf and did not play. He was the richest man in Westeros and yet they gave him money. The mug might have secretly touched him had the handle not come off in his hand. He only ever wore the watch Joanna had given him. The book came from Tyrion and therefore was not to be appreciated, at least not publicly. 

Tywin looked without favor at the last present. 

“It’s from me, Father,” Jaime offered.

Jaime was his son and heir. He was the apple of his eye. Jaime would not disappoint him. He undid the wrapping paper. His expression of politeness froze.

Tyrion seemed as surprised as he was. He whispered audibly to Jaime, “You got him a toaster?” 

“It’s engraved. You need to open it up.”

Tywin did so. “Happy Name Day, Father. Love, Jaime,” he read aloud. “Thank you.”

“Were you drunk when you picked it out?”

“It’s a state of the art toaster, Father.” 

Tommen peered with interest at the box. “It does bagels too! See this is what it says: ‘toasting one side while warming the other.’ Oh, and it defrosts!”

His sister came over and joined him. “There’s a crumb tray. Oh, that will come in handy, Grandfather. It makes for easy clean-up. Hey, it has a timer ‘so you can get exactly the degree of toasting you prefer.’ Wow!” 

“Seven hells, you were watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on TV Land the other night, weren’t you?”

“Shhhh.”

Tommen wrested the box from Myrcella. “‘Award-winning ProHeat elements are guaranteed for two years.’” He frowned. “They give awards for toasters?”

Tywin wondered how long it would be before he could have his house and his solitude back.

It was without surprise that he observed Jaime surreptitiously paying off Myrcella and Tommen in the foyer as everyone was getting ready to leave. 

After they were all gone, he threw the pens in his desk drawer. The watch he put in the safe. When he was dead, they could fight over who got it. The desk sets and golfing equipment were put in the large closet that contained similar gifts from previous years. The book went on the shelves. He was unsure what to do with the mug at first, but finally opted to set it on his desk sans handle. He could put pencils in it, he supposed. The toaster he presented to the housekeeper who was pleased by its features in a far more honest manner than his grandchildren.

Then he forgot all about it.

* * *

Sansa Stark would rather have been doing almost anything other than babysitting her ex-boyfriend’s sister and brother on a Friday night. She didn’t even quite understand how it had happened.

She came home from her Yearbook Club meeting intent on getting some dinner and then going out with her friends. She had gone without breakfast and lunch and she was starving. Instead, her mother apologetically told her she’d volunteered her to babysit Myrcella and Tommen Baratheon. Cersei Baratheon was desperate. Her children would be staying at her father’s. His staff had the evening off and he had an engagement. 

“Can’t I at least get something to eat before I go?”

“They need you now, Sansa. They’ll be here in a few minutes to take you over there.”

So now here she sat in Tywin Lannister’s massive house. Myrcella and Tommen were sweet, well-behaved kids, but a night hanging out with them watching Disney Channel programming was not her idea of fun. 

Myrcella and Tommen had already had dinner, but Cersei assured in Sansa in a bored voice that her father would not mind if she helped herself to something in the kitchen. 

This turned out to be easier said than done. 

Sansa was pretty sure the entire first floor of her parents’ house would fit in Tywin Lannister’s kitchen and there would still be room left over. The fridge was filled with things but almost everything she found was either very grownup food or required cooking. She couldn’t find any fruit or snack food. After much investigation, she unearthed a box of microwave popcorn. And then she tried to use the microwave. 

Like the oven, the cooktop, the coffee maker, and almost every appliance in the kitchen, the microwave had controls that apparently required an advanced degree in engineering to operate. She couldn’t even figure out how to open the microwave door. 

Myrcella and Tommen were no help.

“We’re not allowed in here normally.” Myrcella climbed onto a chair and opened up a cupboard. “Oh, these are the crackers Mother likes. They kind of taste like cardboard and it looks like the package is almost empty, but maybe there’s peanut butter or nutella?”

“No peanut butter, but this looks like jam.” Tommen held out a small container out to Sansa.

“It’s caviar. Uh, fish eggs,” she explained. 

Tommen made a face and shoved it back into the refrigerator. 

“I have money. I guess I could order a pizza.”

“Do you have the code for the gate?”

Sansa’s heart sank. “I’m guessing you don’t either.”

They didn’t.

She tried to content herself with three stale RyKrisp crackers and some carrots. Sitting up with the kids watching TV, it wasn’t so bad, but once they were in bed, her hunger began gnawing at her again.

Sansa was in the house of the richest man in Westeros and he didn’t have any edible food. She told herself she must have missed something. Once more she went back and opened every cupboard searching for something was she could eat.

Canned peaches. She could eat those. They would hold her. All she needed was a can opener. 

After the third search through every single drawer, she had to admit defeat. There had to be a can opener, but she was damned if she could find it. 

There wasn’t any cold cereal. Evidently Tywin Lannister preferred oatmeal or Farina. Sansa had no objections to either, but both required cooking and she couldn’t figure out how to turn on his stupid cooktop.

She was getting desperate enough to try the caviar when it occurred to her that she hadn’t looked in the freezer. 

And then she saw them: frozen bagels. There was butter in the fridge. If she couldn’t light the cooktop, the oven would be beyond her, but the toaster might not be. Sansa decided not to get her hopes up. She went over to the toaster. It appeared to be uncomplicated. It just had dials. There wasn’t any touchpad. 

Sansa discovered how to widen the slots to accommodate the frozen bagel. She pried it apart and dropped them in the slots. She pressed the lever. While it was toasting, she began to restore order to the kitchen. She found a plate, the butter, and a knife. 

Sansa heard the noise before she saw the sparks. By the time she turned around, thick acrid black smoke was pouring out of the slots. 

She yanked the plug out of the wall. She tried to pry the bagels out of the slots but they appeared to be wedged in there really tightly. All she got for her pains were burned fingers.

It was 11:00 P.M. and she’d barely eaten in twenty-nine hours. 

One of the kitchen drawers was still open. Sansa eyed the wooden rolling pin and the still smoking toaster.

* * *

Tywin let himself into his house. It had been a largely unpleasant evening dealing with toadies and bootlickers fundraising for a cause whose name no one seemed to remember.

He frowned at the lights coming from the family room. When he inspected, there were signs someone had been making himself or herself home. He heard the sounds of something being slammed. He wondered if one of his staff had chosen to stay home and had taken liberties by using his family room. He went to investigate and saw the light leaking out from the bottom of the kitchen door. Tywin pushed it open.

A teenage girl with copper red hair held a wooden rolling pin over her head and appeared to be in the act of bringing it down upon the toaster. She saw him and froze.

“Who are you?”

“The babysitter.” She seemed half upset and half embarrassed. “This must look a little strange. I can explain.”

Tywin reached for his phone. “You selected the wrong home to burgle, young woman.”

“I’m not a burglar. I’m Sansa Stark. Mrs. Baratheon asked me to babysit Myrcella and Tommen.”

He blinked. Her name was familiar. Joffrey had dated a girl by that name. Cersei had been pleased, he remembered. She was one of _the_ Starks. But he had no idea what she meant about babysitting his grandchildren and said so.

“Do you think I wanted to be here? Mrs. Baratheon called my mother and she and her husband dropped me off with the kids. They’re sleeping upstairs.” Sansa’s lower lip trembled. Out from her poured a story about going without meals and being desperately hungry. “Who doesn’t have fruit in their home? Why don’t you have apples or oranges or anything? All I could find was caviar. All of your appliances are stupid! You don’t have a can opener. Who doesn’t have a can opener?”

Tywin listened in growing confusion. “I think you had better go home now.”

“Are they here then?”

“Who?”

“The Baratheons.”

Tywin shook his head. “Didn’t you drive?”

“I don’t own a car.” 

He called his daughter, who sounded like she was drunk. After a difficult conversation with her and then an even more frustrating one with his son-in-law, it appeared that neither of them had bothered to ask his permission to leave their children with him, or had considered how the babysitter was going to get home. Tywin hit the icon to end the call. “It’s not as satisfactory as the old phones were,” he muttered.

“What?”

“One cannot slam a smart phone, not without destroying it anyhow. In the old days, you could slam a receiver down.”

“Like slamming a door,” she sighed. “That’s why I had the rolling pin. I was so upset. Your stupid toaster caught on fire.”

He eyed the rolling pin and then he eyed the still smoking toaster. “I wonder how many blows it would take to destroy the wretched thing.”

Sansa slowly took his meaning. She started to hand it to him.

“Ladies first.”

It took seven blows to reduce it to rubble. Both of them felt considerably better after the experience.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid I may have maligned the Dualit New Generation Classic 2-Slice Toaster, a product of which I personally know nothing. I took the features Tommen & Myrcella gush over from the page on the Williams Sonoma site. I'm sure it's a fine toaster and does not burst into flame or spark or anything bad. I just needed some product features and it's nearly $300 so I figured it would be the type of thing a Lannister would buy.
> 
> Oh, and the idea of engraving the toaster comes from a great episode of _Everybody Loves Raymond_ called (unsurprisingly) "The Toaster."


End file.
